Yes, I think this is quite an important and crucial point. Intelligence services don't collect evidence; they collect information. That information is not tested in the way that police evidence is tested in courts. It is not tested as rigorously as is evidence that is collected by police. That's an important distinction that I think the committee should understand and that Canadians more broadly should understand and, to be quite frank, journalists should understand but don't seem to be understanding enough in terms of their reporting about these matters.
The other issue at the core of the question that you're asking is that when CSIS gathers information, it often gathers that information without context and, as you rightly pointed out, without corroboration. Often the language that is being used can be embellished to support a certain narrative that might be established within or among a few intelligence officers within CSIS. Then, of course, there is the editing of that information, which again might be framed in a way to support a particular narrative that doesn't include exculpatory information.
What I suggested in my opening statement is for the committee—and, more broadly, for Canadians and some journalists who don't have an appreciation of how information is created within CSIS—to step back and understand that they have to be much more cautious in accepting as gospel information that is either being paid publicly or being leaked to them by CSIS. I think it's a very important point.
My own reading of what I've been reading, watching and listening to is that this information is being accepted simply as gospel. That can be dangerous and has certainly, as I said in my opening statement, affected people's reputations, and it has led to at least two very serious defamatory libel suits against journalists who have produced these stories. I think that's also quite cautionary.